A variety of video encoding standards support improved recording or transmission efficiency of video sequences by encoding data in a compressed manner. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), for example, has developed a number of standards including MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. Other examples include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) H.263 standard, and the emerging ITU H.264 standard. These video encoding standards generally support improved recording and transmission efficiency of video sequences by encoding data in a compressed manner.
Compression reduces the overall amount of data that needs to be recorded or transmitted for effective reproduction of the video frames. To promote efficiency, the video encoder may adhere to a target bit rate that specifies the number of coding bits that should be allocated to each frame in a video sequence. The video encoder may overshoot the target bit rate for some frames, e.g., due to high complexity caused by excessive motion or texture in the video frame. In this case, the video encoder may skip encoding of some frames in order to conserve coding bits for other frames in the sequence. Excessive frame skipping may cause undesirable artifacts, such as jerkiness, in the encoded video.